U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation By Michael Hendrix Why own something when you can subscribe to it? That’s the question being posed in more parts of the economy than we ever imagined. While the sharing economy—think Craigslist and AirBnB—has caught a lot of attention lately, I think it’s simply one […]

City of Hillsboro, Representatives of Washington County, the City of Hillsboro and Intel Corporation announced that a proposed agreement has been reached for Intel to invest up to $100 billion in the county. The announcement culminates negotiations under Oregon’s Strategic Investment Program (SIP), a private-public partnership that has driven billions […]

By Steve Buckstein, Cascade Policy Institute Eighty-four percent of Oregonians support allowing union employees to leave their union without force or penalty, a concept generally referred to as Right to Work. That’s the finding of a new poll, released today by Cascade Policy Institute as part of National Employee Freedom […]

Almost Half of Oregon’s Job Vacancies are Difficult to Fill by Jessica Nelson, Jul-21-2014 Oregon Employment Department Businesses reported that almost half (48%) of Oregon’s job vacancies in 2013 were “difficult to fill,” according to a new report from the Oregon Employment Department.Major findings about Oregon’s difficult-to-fill job vacancies include: […]

University of Oregon Regional Economic Indexes By Tim Duy Oregon Economic Forum University of  Oregon Weak employment data in June contributed to a drop in the Oregon Measure of Economic Activity. Highlights of the report include: – The Oregon Measure of Economic Activity to -0.60 compared to a revised 0.68 […]

Business News Note: Microsoft’s 14,000 layoffs may have an impact in the NW. The main cause has been their focus in one particular industry sector — mobile devices. Oregon financial professional, Jason Norris of Ferguson Wellman Capital Management Inc., explains to KGW-TV news that Microsoft is “determined to make it […]

By Jan Meekcoms Oregon NFIB (Originally published in Salem Business Journal) Has our public employment retirement system (PERS) in Oregon been so successful that we should force it on private enterprise by law? Oregon’s current PERS deficit is in the billions. Add it to other public retirement systems around the […]

Barran Liebman Oregon Law Firm Executive Order Extends Ban on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity Discrimination President Obama has signed an executive order which prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Effective immediately, this protection extends to most companies that perform work for […]

By NFIB After a promising 3 month run, June’s Optimism Index fell 1.6 points to 95.0. While job components improved, capital outlays and planned spending faded along with expectations for improving business conditions. Overall only two Index components improved, two were unchanged, and six fell. “The only two index components […]

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation By Michael Hendrix It’s been an open question for some time whether personal data could be effectively de-identified. That is, could we handle and analyze mass datasets without exposing individual’s personal information? Some have contended that the answer is “no.” But a recent paper by […]